Harry Potter Reviews,
Awards
and Distinctions

Go back to the Harry Pottermain
page.The books are listed below in reverse chronological order, with
the most recently published book first. Click on the book jacket
above to go directly to the CCBC review and other information for each
title. For
each book, we have provided the CCBC review, citations for other professional
reviews (starred reviews are indicated by an *), and a list of major awards
and/or best-of-the year distinctions it received. Where
possible, we have included links to the original review or list.

Wisconsin residents: many of the reviews cited below are available full-text
in
Badgerlink. (Professional reviews from
journals such as Booklist
and School Library Journal are also available from several online booksellers.)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Reviewed
by CCBC Librarian Megan Schliesman:
J.K. Rowling brings her seven-part, sweeping story to its dramatic conclusion
in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a tense and spellbinding
narrative that moves at breakneck speed, despite its bulk, toward the inevitable
final
confrontation
between now-seventeen-year-old Harry and the evil wizard Voldemort. This time
around Rowling deviates from the pattern that is so familiar in the others—there
is no return to Hogwart’s for Harry, Ron, and Hermione at the start of
the school year. Voldemort and the Death Eaters now control the Ministry of Magic
and the school. And so while the dwindling members of the Order of the Phoenix
battle on like the resistance fighters they are, and while thousands of innocents
face persecution and death, the three friends are committed to completing the
task Dumbeldore set for Harry—hunting down and destroying the Horcruxes
that harbor pieces of Voldemort’s splintered soul. Rowling does follow
the cycle of the seasons that has been so much a part of the passage of time
in the previous stories, offering this comforting familiairty as she chronicles
the
distress
in
the
world
she’s
created and the three friends’ dangerous, uncertain journey. And she continues
to weave her spell of magic—blending an imaginative and inventive
plot, teasing humor, and complex, fascinating characters
into an irresistible story. As Rowling's narrative moves through fall and
winter into spring, she is preparing both Harry and readers for its conclusion,
which
comes
in a
dazzling, ferocious battle involving all those they have come to either love
or
despise. At the center of it all is the young wizard who is willing do whatever
it takes
to save all that he holds in his heart. A little more explanation of one or two
elements essential to understanding the final outcome may have been in order,
but ultimately it’s all there to be discovered and understood. Rowling
has
done
both her story and her readers justice as she brings her smart and incredibly
satisfying
tale to an end.

Selected Awards and Distinctions for Half-Blood Prince

ALA/YALSA Best Books for Young Adults, 2006
Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Books of the Year, 2005Booklist Editors' Choices, 2005CCBC Choices 2006, Fiction for ChildrenKirkus Best Children's Books, 2005

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

CCBC Review ( from CCBC Choices 1998): Harry Potter is a skinny,
spectacled, 11-year-old orphaned child living with a comically hard-hearted aunt
and uncle
and obnoxious, bullying cousin when he gets the summons that changes his life:
he has been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The news
might have been less shocking to Harry if he'd had even an inkling that he possessed
the power of magic, but Harry did not know that witches and wizards existed,
let alone that he himself was a candidate for study at a boarding school where
magic is taught. The mysterious world of spells and potions, gremlins and dragons,
flying broomsticks and magic wands unfolds simultaneously for both Harry and
readers of this highly imaginative, satisfying novel. Boarding schools, even
ones for witches and wizards, are not without their share of snobs and bullies,
but despite this, Hogwarts is a friendly, welcoming place to Harry, and it quickly
begins to feel like his true home. Harry's initiation into Hogwarts' social and
academic life, along with the other first-year boys and girls at the school,
is the reader's initiation, too, and the discoveries to be made are delightful.
Rowling has conjured a fully realized world of magic, complete with centuries-old
history and tradition, sparkling language, rules of conduct, athletics, and,
of course, the requisite battle between good and evil in which Harry and his
new friends become involved. The author conjures up drama, excitement, and mystery
in this wonderfully funny and not-too-scary first novel. (Age 8 and older)

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